


Catgut

by sirsparklepants



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Witcher Biology (The Witcher), Wound Tending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25682299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirsparklepants/pseuds/sirsparklepants
Summary: Three times Geralt has to rely on Jaskier's supplies to stitch a wound.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 12
Kudos: 200





	Catgut

**Author's Note:**

> Historically, gut (usually sheep intestines, despite the name) was used as the material of choice for suturing when the stitches had to be absorbed rather than cut out, all the way back to antiquity. Instrument strings were also gut up until the mid-17th century, when they still had a gut core but were wound with metal. In fact, the middle courses of lute strings are approximately the diameter as the middle grades of standard surgical thread. I hope y'all see where I'm going with this.
> 
> I did not tag this fic for violence, but it is pretty much nothing but **explicit wound care** , sometimes with questionable medical methods because Geralt sucks at taking care of himself, so please be aware of this.

Geralt never thought he'd be grateful for Jaskier's rambling, but as he pawed through the bard's things one-handed, looking for the slim pouch that held his lute strings, he was grateful that Jaskier had expounded on this particular subject - that his lute strings were made of catgut. Geralt could have smelled it if the instrument was close enough, of course, or if he'd smelled Jaskier's hands when he was done performing, but when he thought about putting Jaskier's hands in his mouth, his lute strings were the last thing he was thinking about. Now, though, lute strings were all-important to him, and he breathed out in relief as he found their package and dumped them on the coverlet as he knelt beside the bed.

He had to let go of the wad of linen he had pressed to the gash in his side to thread the needle with the string, of course, but the bleeding had slowed sufficiently that they weren't going to be banned from this inn for bloodstains, as long as Geralt was careful about where he put his hands. He smoothed out the length of the string, put the hem of his shirt in his teeth - too bloody to take off - and after determining no threads were in the wound, pinched the far edge shut and slid the curved needle into the wound. 

Of course, that was when Jaskier walked in. Geralt didn't look up, too busy making sure the same amount of flesh was caught on both sides of the stitch, but he heard the telltale clatter of the bard's steps and how they stopped just as soon as the door opened. Geralt looked up - he could tie the suture knot blind drunk in a blizzard - and caught the full-body inhale that meant Jaskier was about to use the full force of his trained lungs to express his emotions. In this case, judging by the look on his face, displeasure. Geralt didn't wince, but he wanted to.

"What the bloody buggering fuck do you think you're doing?" Jaskier asked, gesticulating wildly. He was indeed loud enough that if the inn wasn't rowdy with drink and merriment in the main room, they'd be getting a complaint.

"What's it look like?" Geralt asked, moving onto the next stitch and looping it through the first to lock it.

Jaskier looked, if possible, even more affronted. "What does it look like? What does it look like, he asks," he said, finally stepping into the room and closing the door behind him so he could pace back and forth in front of it. "It looks like you got yourself slashed up, came back, made a mess of my things and yours both, and instead of using the sewing kit with the lovely silk thread I bought just for you, even though you left a handprint full of - of monster ichor I will never get off the case, you used my good lute strings from Toussaint instead!" He flung a hand towards the strings still spilled out next to Geralt.

Geralt looked down at the wound again to do the next two stitches, used to the rhythm of Jaskier's tantrums. Only when the bard stopped pacing did he look back up, breathing through the sting and pull. "Can't use silk," he said, though it was nice to be thought of.

Jaskier frowned. "You can't?" he said. "That merchant assured me he supplied several healers in Novigrad, and I'm usually a wonderful judge of character - if he swindled me I'll -"

"Jaskier," Geralt interrupted, looking at the needle and his slowly-welling blood again. "He didn't cheat you. Just didn't know about witchers."

Jaskier walked a little closer, drawn out of his ire despite himself. "And what do you mean by that?" he asked.

Geralt finished the last stitch and started to tie it off. Absently, he wished his fingers were slender the way they were before the mutagens. It would make this much easier. He frowned and looked up. Jaskier's hands were more slender than his. "Give me your hand," he said, and pressed one of the musician's fingers against the string as he tied a series of knots.

"Is this the price I pay for information, then?" Jasker asked, bent down so he could reach Geralt on the floor. He wasn't squeamish at the sight of blood, he'd helped clean out enough of Geralt's wounds by now.

Geralt grunted, but he supposed he did owe Jaskier for the help and the strings. Probably more expensive than the grade of catgut he normally used. "You know witchers have enhanced healing," he said, gently pushing Jaskier's hand away and standing up now that he was done. "Hurts as much as it helps sometimes. We heal around something too fast - dirt, rocks, thread - we have to cut ourselves open to get it out. Or we get an infection. Or we scar up around it. Or if it's too close to the surface, we push it out."

Jaskier hummed and began to fuss with his remaining strings, putting them back in their proper place. "So no silk, then?" he asked, and sighed. "Suppose I can use it on the insides of my doublets, so it's not a complete waste. Why my lute strings, then?"

"They're gut," Geralt said, and made a pleased hum when he found the flask of rotgut he kept for disinfection. "Not my gut, but they were part of an animal. They hold long enough to heal, and then they get broken down, not pushed out." 

"Suppose that makes sense," Jaskier said, and placed the pouch of strings carefully back in his lute case. Then he whipped around to stare at Geralt, eyes narrowed. "This is the first time you've needed stitches since Vizima," he said.

Geralt grunted, unsure of where this was going, hand frozen just before pouring spirits on his wound.

"Vizima, where I got more lute strings, and fine silk thread, and a new leatherbound journal, and you almost cleaned out an apothecary. Where they almost certainly," Jaskier hissed, advancing on Geralt with his shoulders squared, " _sell gut for sutures_. And you never use my supplies when you can use your own, no matter how long we've been traveling together. So you've been out," he said, prodding Geralt hard in the chest, "of an essential medical item for at least two weeks, maybe longer!"

"The herbs were more important," Geralt said, taking in a deep breath through his nose. Jaskier smelled of sweat, and ale, and frustration, and underneath it all, an undercurrent of something sour like fear. Worry, he identified it as. For Geralt?

Jaskier looked like he'd like nothing better than to take Geralt by the shoulders and shake him. Instead, he snatched the bottle of rotgut from Geralt. "Give me that," he said, pouring it carefully on the wound. Then he spun around and took two paces away, throwing back a swig of the cheap liquor before he looked at Geralt again.

"We," he said, hissing through the burn, "are going to go for the next large town, and we are going to buy some gut suture. And then we are going to a city and you are going to take a nice safe contract bodyguarding some paranoid noble through a dinner while I perform, and _you_ are going to buy me a new set of strings, because these are too bloody to stretch right any more. And I never want to see you stitching yourself up with lute strings again!" He took another swig from the bottle and made a face. "And I'm keeping this for the rest of the night."

"Suit yourself," Geralt said. "I've got nicer." He nodded at a silver flask not two feet away from the bloodied sewing kit.

"Ass!" Jaskier griped, but the fear-worry scent was fading, and Geralt knew he was forgiven.

* * *

It wasn't the last time, whatever Jaskier had wished. They'd come across a bustling town whose main attraction was the river that ran through it, allowing barges with trade goods a place to stop for the night as they went downstream to a city to sell. Only a water hag had taken up residence in the muddy shallows just upstream, and the travel had quickly dried up. The town had made quite a bit of money off the wealthy merchants who wished to rest in comfort with their items, and they had offered a large purse as well as the nicest inn room in the town for Geralt to clear her out. She'd had a few drowners with her, as he'd feared, and the fight had been long. And fucking muddy.

"You know, Geralt," Jaskier said conversationally, "the blood I understand. Of course I understand that. The monster insides decorating your outsides, I understand that as well. A bit of grass, an artfully disheveled look to your hair, a rakish smudge of dirt. Those are all quite in keeping with the image I'm trying to craft for you. Coming back dripping wet, carrying the fruits of your labor! That's a lovely look for a witcher trying to live down an unfortunate moniker. But no!" Jaskier dumped a bucket of cool water over Geralt's head where he sat on a bathing stool, trying to scrub himself clean enough for a bath. "No, not my witcher. Instead, he comes back covered in sticky river mud. With venom streaked on his armor so no one could come too close."

Geralt grunted as the water washed over the gashes the water hag had left on him. "Didn't want to pollute the river," he said. "Merchants won't come back if they get sick from drinking the water, even if the townspeople are used to it diluted now."

Jaskier paused with the second bucket in his hands. "Well, that's a decent point," he allowed. "Still, just once, I would like it if you came back looking a bit less like a drowned rat."

Geralt snorted. "Have to earn your keep, bard," he said. "What would you do if you didn't have to lie and pretty me up?"

Jaskier rolled his eyes and dumped the second bucket on Geralt, which was enough to loosen up most of the grime. Geralt swiped at it quickly with a rough cloth, eager for the bath, and took Jaskier's hand as the bard offered it when he stood up.

"I can spin plenty of pretty tales using just the truth of you," Jaskier said earnestly, staring into Geralt's eyes like he could impart his message just with the force of his gaze. Geralt swallowed. "It just wouldn't hurt to have lips other than mine repeat tales of heroics, and you know us humans. We're remarkably shallow."

"Not all of you," Geralt said, looking back at him. He couldn't smell Jaskier properly over the mud and blood and scented steam from the tub, but he thought the other man looked pleased.

"Well!" he said, suddenly trying to find anywhere but Geralt's face to look. "Well well well. That's quite the - hang on," he said, frowning. His gaze had caught on the inside of Geralt's bicep, where the hag's claws had found the place where the armor was thinner to allow for movement. "I thought you said your injuries were all minor."

"They are," Geralt said, frowning back. 

Jaskier grabbed Geralt's arm, framing the wound with his hands. "That doesn't look minor to me," he said. "I'm fairly sure I can see the muscle. Is it supposed to be that dark?" he asked. "You're not going to keel over and die from poison, are you?"

"It's the mutations," Geralt said. "Witcher muscles all look like that. Makes them work better. And it is minor. Stopped bleeding already. I'll stitch it up after the bath."

"You certainly will not," Jaskier said, squeezing his arm and then letting it go. "You'll sew it up now. Where's your suture kit?" 

"In the potions bag," Geralt said. "Might still have venom on it, I'll get it."

The problem was, of course, that the potions bag had gone in the water, and the suture kit with it. The needle was fine, but catgut didn't do well in the water. Geralt stared at the roll of gut Jaskier had bought him, swollen and frayed with moisture, and thought perhaps he understood consternation now, a bit.

"Jaskier," he said, and the bard looked up.

"It's ruined, isn't it," he said in a tone of great despair.

Geralt held up the roll of thread in reply.

Jaskier sighed deeply, from the belly and not the chest, so it carried across the room. "You know, I've tried quite hard to prevent this," he said, not to Geralt but to the wider room, as if the luxury of their settings gave him his own personal audience. "I listened to the witcher -"

"For once," Geralt broke in, and Jaskier gave him a filthy look and continued unimpeded.

"I _listened to the witcher_. I cared for my friend. I made sure I provided what he needed, and what is my reward? Again, I'm asked for a valiant sacrifice!" He staggered backwards, back of his hand flung to his face like the heroine in a cheap streetside play. 

"You don't have to give me your strings again," Geralt said, unsettled by the melodrama.

Jaskier dropped his hand and looked straight at Geralt, frowning. "What? No, don't be stupid, Geralt, it doesn't suit you. Of course I do! I only wish you'd showed the sense of a thirteen-year-old butcher's apprentice and kept your suture kit on Roach or something, where it would have stayed dry."

"Water hags can be difficult," Geralt said. "Didn't know if I'd be able to get back to Roach before I needed patching up."

Jaskier examined him, as if looking at him long enough could make the truth in his words appear beside him, and then sighed. "I suppose that's a decent enough excuse," he said. "Although you, sir Two Shirts Are All I Need, are going to learn the beauty of _spares_ soon."

Geralt frowned. "Two shirts is a spare," he said.

"No, two shirts is one step up from abject poverty," Jaskier said, pulling the leather pouch with his spare strings out and bringing them over. "Now, I suppose we're devastating the middle courses of my lute today, since you left the bass and the chanterelle alone last time?" 

Geralt shrugged. "They were the right size. Don't know where they go," he said.

Jaskier pulled one string out and reached for the suture kit. "Well, you shall simply have to learn," he said. "That looks to be a right bitch to sew up on yourself, so you'll give me a lesson, and in return, you'll listen to me give you one while I poke this alarmingly shaped needle through your flesh. It seems an appropriate price to pay, don't you think?"

Geralt sighed, but truly, it wasn't a bad exchange. "You know how to tie a surgeon's knot?" he asked, reaching for the thread. "It's a reef knot with an extra throw."

Jaskier wasn't squeamish about sewing him up, and his hands were strong, dextrous, and steady. Examining the stitches as he bathed, Geralt thought the scar would be nearly invisible when it healed. And if two days later, another roll of gut suture and a small waxed leather bag for it appeared, he certainly had nothing to say about it.

* * *

There were voices. Geralt tried to turn his head, open his eyes, but it was oddly difficult, as if his lids, his skull, were all a hundred times heavier than they should be. He moved both a minute amount, just enough to get blurry outlines of whoever was out here, speaking, when it should have been just Geralt and the fiend.

"...sorry to drag you out here in the muck, healer," one voice was saying. Jaskier's voice. "The innkeep wouldn't release our horse or any of our belongings without proof, and I knew if he hadn't come back yet he couldn't, and certainly I couldn't drag him back to town. Just look at him!"

"It's fine," the other voice said, low and brisk, coming from the hazy shape of a woman, limned by the torch Jaskier carried. "A witcher did me a good turn, some twelve years gone. I'll help this one if I can. Anything special I should know, master bard?" 

Their voices were coming closer, and Geralt frowned. It wasn't safe, was it? Had he killed the fiend? He supposed so, because he didn't hear it roaring, but he tried to call out that they should stay back, anyway. All that came out was a low groan.

"Geralt? Geralt, you're awake! Thank all the gods," Jaskier said, running towards him. No, that was the opposite of what Geralt wanted. "Where's your supplies? That wound in your thigh looks bad."

It certainly felt bad. The fiend had gored him in its dying throes, whipping its head back and forth, and one of the antlers had caught him in the thigh. He'd saved one potion out of the bag on his belt, but the rest - and his suture kit - were trampled into the mud. 

"Gone," he got out, turning his head towards the shards of glass. "One. Kiss." He moved a hand towards the empty bottle. 

"Fuck," Jaskier said, uncharacteristically terse. He turned back to the healer. "His kit is gone, but he managed to get one potion down him, which is why he hasn't bled out from this, I assume," he told her. "But it's just the one that stops the bleeding, not the one that starts the healing. Because that would be just too convenient." 

The healer moved closer, moving Jaskier's wrist so the torchlight could fall on the wound. "I'll have to wash it out to be sure, but it'll need stitching - I should think I'll have to put the muscle back together, as well as the skin. Do you have a skin of clean water, master bard? Boiled clean, I mean," she said. There was a rustling beside Geralt as she settled in. "I'd prefer to do this out of the dirt, but you're right, I don't think we can move him."

"Can move myself," Geralt managed, though he could certainly use some support. 

"You certainly can't," the healer said sharply. "Once we have this wound closed, then we can see about that. Ah, thank you, master bard," she said, as Jaskier handed her his waterskin.

"Jaskier," he said. "Geralt insists we keep some clean at all times, and I certainly see the value in it. Oh, hush," he added, leaning down to grip Geralt by the shoulder, as the witcher had hissed when the healer began to irrigate the wound. "You're a big tough monster hunter! You shan't be defeated by a little water."

"Burns," Geralt managed, taking in deep breaths - in through the nose, hold, out through the mouth. After a few of them, the pain faded.

"Well, it's about to burn a bit more, master witcher," the healer said. "I will have to stitch it, and I'll need to disinfect it thoroughly. There's a shard of antler in the wound, though it's Melitele's own blessing you wear leather so there's no threads snagged."

Geralt grunted, and then said, "Kiss will hold. Do it."

"I don't know what's in your potion, so I can't give you anything for the pain," the healer said. "Are you sure?" 

"It's fine," Geralt said. "Had worse."

"All right," the healer said. "Tell master Jaskier if you need something to bite down on." There was the clinking of metal as she presumably pulled some instruments from her kit.

"Wait!" Jaskier cried. "Wait wait wait. Do you have gut thread? It's important."

The healer stopped. "Not in my field kit," she said, "and I don't want to leave him alone to go get it in this condition. I just have silk."

"Fucking cock," Jaskier muttered. "Sorry, healer, it's just that his is crushed into the mud and our spare is with that fucking cock of an innkeeper. He told me once his body will push the thread out, or some other nasty things - it's one of the few things that can give him an infection."

The healer hissed through her teeth. "Yes, with a muscle wound that would be quite nasty," she said.

"It'll hold," Geralt said. He'd known perfectly well there was no gut, and he'd been prepared to deal with the consequences. "Can redo it later."

Jaskier squeezed his shoulder again, hard, and Geralt got the impression he'd be feeling the bard's nails if it weren't for his armor. "Not good enough," he said, "you fucking self-sacrificing disaster. Healer, if you could hold the torch for me," he added, turning to do… something at his back.

"You're out of spares," Geralt said dizzily. He was… almost sure that was true. This was a humid region, and the lute strings didn't behave well. Jaskier had snapped three in the course of two weeks.

"Yes, and without sutures, _you'll_ be out of blood when Kiss wears off," Jaskier snapped. There was the sound of wood on wood and some discordant twanging. "I can live without a lute for a few weeks, much as it pains me. You can't live without a fucking thigh muscle, Geralt!"

The healer coughed. "I don't mean to insult, master Jaskier, but your hands have been all over these strings. They may not be clean enough," she said.

Jaskier sighed. "I think he's resistant to infection," he said, and there was another wooden sound. "Certainly takes much less care with cleanliness and disinfection of his own wounds than he does with mine."

"It'll be fine," Geralt said, turning his head with great effort to look at the healer.

"Forgive me if I don't trust your word, master witcher, given you were going to let me patch you up slapdash," the healer said primly. But she took the strings from Jaskier, setting them aside with the needle, before she began.

What followed was a hazy interlude filled with the familiar bright pain of wound care: the sharp pull of the antler removal, the sting of more water, the burn of alcohol, hotter with every small crevice it crept into, the pull and prod of stitches with a competent hand. Then the healer slathered a cream smelling of arnica and willow on Geralt's purpling ribs before wrapping them, and sat back, satisfied.

"All right, master witcher," she said. "Shall we try getting you on the move once more? I think between the two of us, master Jaskier and I can manage to get you to the inn."

"Mm," Geralt managed, breathing deeply, and then, "Proof." The innkeep had put up the contract, and he didn't trust witchers. Without the head, Geralt had no bed to sleep in, and he knew he couldn't carry it now.

"You let me worry about the proof," the healer said, and though Geralt still couldn't make out the details of her face, he thought she was smiling from her voice. "The innkeep is a fucking cock, and I'll be happy to handle him for you."

Beside him, Jaskier let out an involuntary bark of laughter. "I will be absolutely delighted to witness it," he said.

"Well, come on then, the both of you," the healer said, and between the two of them, they were able to get Geralt on his feet.

"Just Geralt," he said, as they were all catching their breaths.

"Mm?" the healer asked, panting.

"Not master witcher," he said. "Just Geralt."

"Well then, Just Geralt," the healer said, and he was sure she was smiling this time, "let's get you to that inn."

His sense of time was hazy still, but Geralt thought it was perhaps half an hour before Jaskier and the healer deposited him on a bench by the fire. The main floor of the inn was mostly empty, judging by the sounds, and Jaskier settled with him, pulling deep breaths into his lungs with a practiced air.

"Why did you do it?" Geralt asked. The stitches and the Kiss had done enough that he was no longer quite so dizzy and his eyes could focus much better, so he turned to look Jaskier in the face.

Jaskier didn't bother pretending he didn't know what Geralt was talking about. "I told you why I did it," he said. His face was solemn.

"You love that lute like a child, Jaskier," Geralt said. He was warm, and he didn't know if it was the fire or the conversation that was creeping hot into his veins. 

"Is that what this is about, really?" Jaskier asked. "Geralt, really. I quite love that lute, yes, but it's a thing, and the strings are the most replaceable thing about it. Besides. You know I love it because it came from you, right?"

Geralt's heartbeat, already fast to make up for the lost blood, sped up more. "What?" he rasped.

"Oh, you didn't give it to me directly, granted," Jaskier said, "but it's a reminder of the first adventure we went on." He stopped and looked at Geralt's face, and then - gently, softly, quietly, in a way Geralt had never deserved, he said, "A reminder of when I started to fall in love with you."

Geralt said nothing. He could say nothing, his breath frozen in his chest, his heart beating wildly fast. He looked down, unable to meet the sincerity in Jaskier's eyes, but. He crept his hand over slightly, inch by inch, until his fingers were resting on top of Jaskier's. He saw rather than heard the deep indrawn breath Jaskier took, but his gaze was mostly on their hands. Just as slowly, Jaskier laced their fingers together, and slowly, Geralt squeezed. He found the courage to look up, and found Jaskier smiling at him, small and bright and joyful.

"So you see," Jaskier said softly. "No great sacrifice at all."

**Author's Note:**

> In general, gut sutures are actually more prone to triggering a foreign body response resulting in "spitting" like Geralt describes than a modern absorbable stitch, but witcher healing is bonkers in canon anyway and modern materials don't exist, so here I have his foreign body response aggressively try to get rid of all sutures, and the gut ones respond best to it. The mention of his darker muscle is because of a conversation I had with a friend about how the fuck Geralt's biology even works with a heartbeat four times slower - one of the solutions is increased myoglobin in the muscles.
> 
> All the stitching techniques I described are courtesy a plastic surgeon who filmed a video for a Duke course on youtube. Definitely the most fun piece of story research I've done this year.
> 
> I complained about not being able to use the word "hemostasis" in this fic and my friends delightfully informed me that that would actually be incredibly IC for Geralt as of game one, so there may eventually be a followup to this where he and the healer talk shop.


End file.
